


five times nathaniel got stuck holding the baby

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Humor, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: "Just because I've learned how to hold this baby doesn't make me a good person."People keep handing Darryl's daughter to Nathaniel.





	five times nathaniel got stuck holding the baby

**Author's Note:**

> I doubt that RB and ABM will go into any great length to show Darryl's baby with the crew, and honestly that will work for me. That being said, Nathaniel canonically has said that babies are disgusting, and therefore he absolutely needs to be put in close proximity with the canon one and made to endure at some point.

 

**i.**

To the surprise of everyone, the biological child of Rebecca and Darryl is a remarkably chill baby.

One well-behaved infant is not about to make Nathaniel a fan any time soon, but it makes her new presence in the office a little more bearable, a little easier to accept and forget while he handles the consequences of the trash fire that is Rebecca’s guilty plea. Besides, he doesn’t really have the heart to tell Darryl that he can’t bring his kid around when he’s so clearly besotted with her existence.

He does wish Darryl would stop pushing the issue about holding the kid though.

But Darryl is Darryl, and Darryl’s philosophy is that  it is supremely unlikely that Nathaniel will cause any damage to his offspring. Where there’s joy to be shared, he is determined to see it through.

And because Nathaniel can never put off Darryl for long, he ends up acquiescing on a Friday afternoon, when his already-lacksdaisical staff are even more sluggish that usual, and his brain is overwrought with running the place more-or-less solo while Darryl is still technically on paternity leave and while they deal with the fallout of the senior partner being arrested for second-degree murder and he, specifically, deals with the fact that she chose to plead guilty.

If nothing else, at least the timing of his moment of weakness is convenient; the office is nearly empty, so no one will be trying to coo at him or ask him if he plans to have children of his own or anything absurd like that.

Darryl lifts her out from her carrier and brings her around to Nathaniel’s side of their desks.

“Watch her head,” he says, settling the too-small bundle in the crook of Nathaniel’s arm. “Have you ever held babies before?”

“Not really.” Nathaniel admits, shifting his other arm, feeling awkward and something that definitely verges on terror—she’s impossibly tiny and there is no way he can move without accidentally crushing her.

But she barely stirs, only giving a small, pink yawn before nestling more firmly in the crook of his elbow. Darryl beams.

“Isn’t she beautiful? I think she got a good blend of features from me and Rebecca.”

About the only thing Nathaniel can tell about the baby is that she is red and a little wrinkly and stupidly fragile, and about ninety percent of his brain is devoted to moving as little as possible to avoid jostling her.

But the minutes go by and she hasn’t started crying, and minutely, Nathaniel relaxes back into his chair.

“She looks good,” he says at last. “Congratulations, Darryl.”

Darryl is making a ridiculously goopy face and it’s making Nathaniel itchy under the collar, so Nathaniel casts his mind around for something to distract him.

“How is she sleeping through all of this?”

“Newborns do that,” Darryl says, shrugging. “It will be about six weeks before she really starts moving around. Then you might see me get a little loopy. But it’s going to be worth it. It’s already worth it—you should see how happy Madison is; she’s wanted a new sister for a long time.”

Nathaniel’s lips twist up into a smile, despite himself. “Well, good for Madison that she has you to fulfill her every whim.”

 “Thank you.” Darryl leans against the edge of his desk, hands clasped loosely in front of him, looking down at them with a surprisingly inscrutable expression.

“Hey, Nathaniel?”

“Hm?”

“Is everything going all right with you?”

Caught off-guard, Nathaniel looks up, mouth slightly agape. A thousand deflections spring to mind and immediately are dismissed as inadequate.

“What?”

Darryl takes a deep breath and sets his shoulders. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Things have been weird for you these last few months, right? You can talk to me, you know.”

And, okay, Darryl is not duplicitous. Does not have a bone without good intentions in his body. But he is a lawyer, too, and Nathaniel realizes that as much as Darryl wanted to share his offspring, he probably was also open to setting up a Serious Talk. And Nathaniel is not secure enough to get up and leave.

Well-played.

“Well, if you want to hear _that,_ you better get comfortable,” says Nathaniel dryly.

Darryl doesn’t bat an eyelid. “We have time.”

 

**ii.**

Nathaniel’s official stance on having Darryl’s daughter around is that he doesn’t care that she’s around as long as she doesn’t distract the office to any greater degree than usual. He isn’t quite sure if the fact that, despite the near-constant presence hovering over her carrier, productivity hasn’t slacked is a positive testament to the kid’s unobtrusiveness or a negative one against his office’s usual productivity.

Besides, it’s kind of…pleasant, seeing Darryl be so attentive to her. For someone who knocks over candy bowls and fumbles with the slideshow remote with depressing regularity, he’s completely in his element as a parent, and after his initial request for Nathaniel to hold her, he hasn’t asked much beyond occasionally asking Nathaniel to keep an eye on her carrier if he has to step out.

If only the rest of his staff exercised the same restraint.

Within the first couple of weeks, three events have occurred:

  1. Heather visits to consult with Paula and her nickname of ‘BB’ spreads rapidly (apparently, she’s a _Kill Bill_ fan, though she has reservations about Tarantino himself).
  2. It turns out that Mrs. Hernandez was still in the office when Nathaniel first held BB, and not only did she take pictures, they have been widely shared.
  3. Despite the many parents represented in the office, Nathaniel has become the go-to person for BB if Darryl is not immediately available, because for some _inconceivable_ reason, she stops crying around him.



The inciting incident that led to number three was his own damn fault, too. One minute Maya had been panicking when BB started wailing while both Darryl and Paula (the should-be number two) had stepped out, and George had been trying to help but making things worse, and Nathaniel had intervened because while he doesn’t believe his staff would actually play hot potato with a live human being he also doesn’t _not_ believe it…and BB had immediately quieted down.

“Awww, she likes you,” George had sighed, and if the firm hadn’t been so busy and needed every hand on deck it _absolutely_ would have been his fourth fireable offense.

And, if Nathaniel was honest, it wouldn’t have changed anything. The damage had already been done.

“Hey, Nathaniel, do you know where Darryl is?”

With an internal groan, Nathaniel tears himself out of his focus to look up at Tim, hovering in the doorframe, carrying BB with the ease of someone who has offspring and takes an active interest in them.  

“In a meeting,” says Nathaniel warily. “Why?”

Tim pulls his wet-blanket face, which immediately puts Nathaniel on guard.

“Oh, shoot—look, so I’ve gotta get home so my wife and I can make our reservation. Could you take BB?”

Even as he’s asking, Tim doesn’t wait for a response, before shuffling over and handing BB across the desk.

“Do you have to give her to me?” asks Nathaniel, alarmed. “The carrier is _right there_ —”

“She wants to be held or she’ll start screaming—trust me, I know that look. I’m sorry, but I can’t wait any longer or my wife will get really mad.”

“Tim, you can’t just—hey, _easy_ , kid…” BB’s already squirming, and Nathaniel is preoccupied with making sure he has a firm hold on her. She’s still only a little longer than his forearm, but her movements are strong.

“Sorry, Nathaniel.” Tim is already halfway out of the door. “It’s just this time. I owe you one!”

“I’m your boss—you already owe me!” Nathaniel snarls after Tim as the other man practically sprints out of the office. But his righteous indignation is broken when BB starts hiccupping, the alarming prelude to a full-on wail.

Usually, Darryl is close at hand, and Nathaniel’s not stuck with BB for longer than a few minutes before rescue.

…and then there are the times like right now.

BB whimpers and clings to the lapel of his jacket, wrinkling it.

“Hey, kid, calm down,” he says, trying to keep his irritation in check—it’s not her fault that his employee is a moron. “Your dad’s going to be back soon. If you go to sleep, it’ll seem like he’s back a lot faster. What do you say?”

She quiets, and he looks down to see her blue eyes staring up unblinkingly at him. He tries to catalogue whether that is a Rebecca trait or a Darryl trait or even just an infant trait and comes up blank. Either way, it’s just unnerving.

“Okay, you need to not do that. Come on, sleeping’s good for you,” he says, trying not to think about the fact that he’s been reduced to reasoning with an infant.

“Oh good, you’re talking with her.” Nathaniel looks up to see Paula, now leaning against the door to the office. “That’ll be good for her language development.”

“I do my best,” says Nathaniel shortly. “Would you mind giving me a hand? The carrier is right there.”

“And ruin a perfectly good picture? Not at all,” says Paula, regarding him with thinly-veiled amusement. “I should have brought my phone.”

Nathaniel glowers at her, painfully aware that the effect is hampered by the fact that he’s holding an infant in a bright purple onesie (Darryl having eschewed gender-conforming colors on the recommendations of both Rebecca and Heather).

“Ask Mrs Hernandez for copies,” he says, in lieu of a proper threat.

“Nah, she’s started charging for them.” Paula cocks her head to the side, enjoying his discomfiture far too much. “Besides, it’s weirdly fun seeing a so-called big, bad businessman taking care of a widdle one.”

The baby voice makes it ten times more degrading.

“Just because I’ve learned how to hold this baby doesn’t make me a good person.”

“I know. Don’t worry, I’m not about to make that mistake.” Paula looks thoughtful. “We’ll have to do something to make sure her taste improves when she grows up.”

“Why don’t you start now and take her?” he asks, leaning away as BB’s waving fist narrowly misses his nose. He shifts slowly, so that she’s no longer in the crook of his elbow but leaning against his chest, her cheek resting on his shoulder.

“I meant in general. For you, honestly, it’s a lost cause. Given her parents, she’s probably genetically coded to like you.”

“And that doesn’t count for you?”

“Yeah, but I have other things to do _and_ I’m not the one sharing an office with her dad.”

Before he can think of an appropriate retort a wet, coughing noise emanates from over his right shoulder. Paula’s eyes widen, and then there’s something warm and liquid and nauseating seeps through the back of his jacket. Nathaniel closes his eyes and breathes slowly, fighting the sudden flash of nausea. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s done to himself in this office, but he would like to avoid checking another bodily function off the list.

Paula winces. “You, uh, probably should have been wearing a handtowel.”

“Right. Now I know,” he says with a tight smile.

“I’ll take her.” Paula finally takes pity on him, setting down her folder on Darryl’s desk and holding out her hands. “Go get cleaned up.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” says Nathaniel, knowing that he sounds pathetically grateful and not caring one whit. He shrugs out of his suit jacket while Paula, balancing BB expertly on her hip, goes digging around in the baby bag under Darryl’s desk.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” says Paula, shaking out a baby cloth and wiping off BB’s face. “Considering what can come out of babies, this is _nothing_. At least she didn’t poop on you.”

“Small mercies,” he says icily, folding up his jacket carefully and stalking out of the room to salvage whatever is left of his dignity.

 

**iii.**

Even when she’s not around, Rebecca makes her mark. ‘Self-Improvement’ is the theme of the year, where Tim leaves early on Fridays for planned date nights with his wife, Mrs Hernandez and Maya try to get along better, and Paula is seeking to atone for some past actions that sound vaguely unnerving. Even Nathaniel isn’t yet immune, reevaluating a few things in his life and spending more time with Darryl and Whijo, who apart from one glaring blind spot, mostly have their stuff together.

Nathaniel is more than happy to help them get over their blind spot, but while he has never been one to shy away from responsibility, he also never expected that they might be stretched to include infant care.

“Just so you know, those moms over there are talking about how cute your daughter is,” Heather observes, stopping by the booth where, theoretically, Nathaniel was supposed to be spending the afternoon with Darryl and Whijo, but now he’s on baby-watching duty until the other two come back from the bleachers or wherever they are having whatever honest and heartfelt conversations they need to have, because they are actually well-adjusted individuals who can do that and get results from it.

Nathaniel sighs. BB squirms and he adjusts his hold so that she is nestled more comfortably against his shoulder. He could put her in the high chair, but she is ridiculously cuddly to a standard that he is not sure is normal and _will_ make a scene (certainly, he’s never seen any of the children of his parents’ social circle spend this much time fussing to be held). Time and proximity has made him less self-conscious about holding her, and he definitely doesn’t begrudge Whijo and Darryl the extra time to talk through their issues because, frankly, there’s only so many _I got the baby gates for Max, not BB_ or _oh no,_ _I’m not going to bother Whijo about that, but how is he doing, I know he has this new set of glute exercises he’s been trying_ that he could be bounced between before he legitimately goes insane.

(And he’s not the only one—the few times he’s met Madison, she definitely rolled her eyes at her father and Whijo’s unsubtle not-flirting. It’s been a weird bonding point with them.)

“Please tell me you corrected them,” he says without much hope, already resigned to whatever answer she’ll have for him.

“I mean, I told them I thought she was cute too, but that I was probably biased ‘cause I was pregnant with her. So, you know, baby brain.”

Nathaniel glares. Heather widens her eyes innocently at him, completely unaffected.

“Oh, don’t worry, they know we aren’t together. Like, you’re good-looking, but blegh.” She pulls a face not unlike the one BB made when she tasted lemon for the first time.

“Likewise,” agrees Nathaniel, a touch sarcastically. “You couldn’t have cleared that up in a less misleading way?”

Heather just raises her eyebrows at him and crosses her arms. “I mean, I can tell them that she’s actually your ex-girlfriend’s daughter with your mutual law firm partner who you’re watching while he tries to hook up with his ex-boyfriend. It’s definitely more interesting. Lisa would totally be into that. Did I mention that she’s divorced?”

“Please don’t.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.” says Heather. “How long have you been sitting alone with her? Where’s Darryl?”

“Oh, him and Whijo needed to go find something. They said they would be back in thirty minutes about, what, an hour ago?”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

 “She’s chewing on you,” says Heather, changing the subject. “Darryl asked me to keep a teething ring in the fridge. Should I go get it?”

“If you could. Thank you,” he adds.

“Coming right up,” she says, and wanders away.

He looks over at the clock and groans.

“Your dad needs to make his move soon,” he tells BB. “This is getting a little ridiculous.”

She gurgles.

“I’m glad you agree.”

 

**iv.**

He doesn’t plan to stay for long when he drops by the Bunch-Davis-Hector household with a pile of papers that Rebecca asked for—possibly some small talk, but nothing much more substantial than that, and he definitely doesn’t expect Heather to open the door with BB on her hip.

“Hey. Sup, Nathaniel.”

“Heather. Is Darryl visiting?” he asks, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t see his car.”

“Nah, BB and I are just having a playdate.” She steps aside to let him through, closing the door behind him.

“Ah,” he looks at her sideways. “I thought Rebecca said that you were kind of done with the whole baby thing.”

“Yeah,” says Heather, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, the good news is that the human brain forgets excruciating pain really quickly because it needs to trick women into wanting to have more spawn. Now that I have more or less forgotten the agony of squeezing her head out of my lady parts, I actually like having her around. And Darryl did name me as one of her godmothers, so I’m legally allowed to spoil her for a few hours and then give her back to Darryl for actual parenting. It works out.”

Nathaniel blinks. “Right. Is Rebecca home?” He holds up the folder. “I need to drop these off.”

“No. She’s out trying to take care of some unexpected family business.”

He winces; that can’t be good. “Got it. Uh, should I bother waiting around or can I just leave these on the table?”

“Whatever works for you. Actually, though, since you’re here, could you just grab her a second? We need to load the car and she _will_ crawl into a vent or something if we leave her unsupervised for too long.”

“Sounds like a story,” says Nathaniel dryly, at this point is too used to carrying BB around to really feel that protesting is worth the effort when Heather passes her over.

“It’s really not. I’ll be back in a minute, thaaaanks.”

She picks up a small cooler resting on the counter and walks right back out the front door, leaving him alone with BB.

She’s in a good mood: giggling and waving her arms and smacking him softly in the face.

“Aghfdfff,” says BB.

“Hello to you too,” he says dryly. “Things going well? Not planning any funny business?”

BB babbles in response.

“Good girl.”

He’s gone to look over Heather and Rebecca’s shared bookshelf for any titles that might possibly catch his interest, when the front door flies open with a bang. A terrifying and vaguely familiar woman strides through the door and looks around the room as if she fills the space by right. When her eyes land on him, her scowl deepens, like she’s stepped on a dead rat.

“Is that her? Is that my granddaughter?”

Naomi Bunch shoulders her way into the house, luggage in tow. Rebecca follows close on her heels; her eyes widen when she catches sight of Nathaniel holding BB in her kitchen.

“Uh…”

“Of course she is—those are Garfinkel ears if I ever saw them,” Naomi pushes forward, not even waiting for a response. She glowers at him with the force of a thousand knitting needles. “Are you the sperm donor then? Not bad bone structure, I suppose, but really, Becky –couldn’t you have found someone less Aryan?”

Nathaniel’s legs seem to have stopped working; he’s frozen in the middle of the room and not where to escape. Rebecca, bristling like a cat, moves quickly between them, blocking Naomi’s path.

“Mom, Nathaniel doesn’t have anything to do with her, well, biologically speaking. And I told you, she might have my DNA, but she is Darryl’s baby. You remember Darryl, right?”

“Yeah, your boss, right? The one with the bad mustache and the googly eyes? Yeah, I remember him. What a dunce.”

“Well, the dunce is the father. He’s doing an amazing job and she’s _his_ daughter, not mine. I donated the egg—this is not a co-parenting situation, and you have no rights to her.”

“Legal rights or no legal rights, she’s blood. All this time I’ve been losing sleep about you not getting a husband when you’re giving away the milk for free, when I should have been worried about the eggs!”

“Ohmigod, _Mom_.” Rebecca clutches at her face, leaving angry red marks down her temples.

“Well, how else did you disrespect yourself? Did you give birth to the kid too?” She gives Rebecca a sharp onceover and shakes her head, tsking loudly. “You might as well have—not like anyone would be able to tell the difference.”

Rebecca’s lips curl back into a snarl and Nathaniel might not have any kind of paternal instincts to speak of, but he knows when it’s time to make an escape. He ducks out of the back door and flees to the front of the house, where Heather and Hector are still loading Hector’s car.

“Hurricane Naomi almost got you, huh?” observes Heather.

“Barreling straight from the East Coast. I seem to have missed the warning,” Nathaniel gripes, settling BB in her carseat and stepping back to let Heather attend to the straps and buckles.

“Yeah. None of us knew she was coming until she texted on the way over from the airport. Rebecca was trying to flag down her taxi a block out to avoid…this whole situation,” she gestures vaguely around at both Nathaniel and BB.

“Understood.” He grimaces. “Is Rebecca going to be okay alone with her?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t think she planned for it to happen like this, but their confrontation has been a long time coming and it’s gonna take a while before they find any kind of common ground. Don’t worry, she’ll probably call you later. Yeah,” she adds when he jumps guiltily. “I know you guys started talking again. I think it’s a good thing. Your parents are a special brand of terrible.”

“Yeah,” agrees Nathaniel reluctantly, feeling heat rise in his face at being caught out. He clears his throat. “I should probably be going, then.”

He searches his pockets for his car keys, only to remember that he left them on the kitchen table inside. “Oh, shit.”

“You might want to stay out of the house until they’re done.” Heather tilts her head, studying him. “You want to come with us?”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding, that’s kind of why I invited you. Also, everyone will just assume that you’re her dad and Hector and I don’t have to answer any dumb questions.”

Technically, he doesn’t have anything planned for the day. He could just call a Lyft and go home to renew his case notes or clean his apartment or something else mundane and useful.

“We’re going to the zoo,” Heather adds. “If that’s something that might, like, change your mind.”

“Yeah, there’s a new tiger exhibit,” adds Hector, popping up from the other side of the car. “Come on, dude. It’ll be pretty sick.”

“I’ve already been; it’s not that special,” says Nathaniel. Nevertheless, he relents and climbs into the backseat.

 

**v.**

Things are getting pretty good. Darryl and Whijo are back together, Rebecca’s been working on some personal project with Paula that they are both excited about, George has a steady girlfriend and Nathaniel has finally started seeing Dr. Akopian (not Rebecca’s therapist or Mona’s—the one who works across town. Apparently, therapy is the family profession).

Of course, some things remain completely the same.

It’s the company picnic and somehow, despite the many, _many_ people far more qualified that he is, like Paula, Mrs Hernandez, even Tim, somehow when Darryl gets called away for an impromptu game of soccer, George ( _George_ , of all people) sees fit to dump BB into his arms before hurrying away, shouting their thanks.

He doesn’t mind too much—at least he knows that she’s already been fed and burped and unlikely to spit up on him, so he goes to one of the picnic blankets and tucks one leg behind the other so that he ends up sitting cross-legged, BB on his knee. She has one hand tucked into her mouth and looking around with an open, frank gaze and not inclined to wiggle away. He bounces her absently as they watch the game from afar.

“Want some company?” asks an amused female voice from the vicinity above him, and Nathaniel doesn’t bother to hide his smile as he tilts his head back and it’s Rebecca in her bright yellow sundress and with her hands on her hips, beaming down at him.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey. Not interested in the game?” he asks with a jerk of his chin towards where a bunch of lawyers are falling over themselves and getting spectacularly grass-stained and arguing about technicalities with a fervor they do not apply to their paperwork.

“Eh, you know my feelings on football,” says Rebecca, waving a hand dismissively, flopping down in the same crossed-legs pose without any regard for Nathaniel’s personal space, smoothing down the front of her skirt as their knees knock gently together. She holds out her arms at him. “Come on, lemme have her.”

“If you insist,” he says, helping Rebecca pick up BB and ease her over to her lap. She’s held BB less than most people in the office, so there is something still a little cautious about how she handles her, a little more tentative and unsure. For all of the many different facets of Rebecca he has seen over the last two years, this uncertainty still surprises him.

BB is utterly transfixed by Rebecca, staring curiously up into her face, her eyes tracking with unusual focus as Rebecca tilts her head first to the left, then to the right.

“Stop doing that,” she says, startling him. She’s not even looking at him, supporting BB just under the arms and letting her practice standing, compensating for her wobbling legs.

“Doing what?”

“Doing what everyone else does when they see us together –trying to figure out what she got from me. The great family resemblance or whatever.”

“I’m not doing that,” he protests. “She’s a baby, there’s nothing to look for—she’s basically just a tiny Michelin man.”

She shoots him an amused look, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“Maybe I was looking a little bit,” he admits. “But the only thing I can tell is the hair.”

BB’s hair sticks out from her bonnet in reddish curls. Rebecca gives a noncommittal hum, with a slight moue to her mouth. She bounces BB, making her giggle.

“Do you want her to look like you?” he asks, tentatively.

Rebecca chews her lip. “I’d rather she takes after Darryl. It’ll just make things easier when she gets older. I mean, obviously, she’s gonna be smart—”

“Obviously,” he agrees, just slightly droll, and more than a little gratified at her answering grin.

“Flatterer,” she chides fondly. “And I’ve been talking to Dr Akopian more about BPD, and you know, what to do if anything comes up from my fu—effed up DNA,” she corrects hastily, with a guilty look down at the child balancing in front of her, oblivious. “So I’ll be able talk to Darryl about that stuff—and I’ll know how to talk to her, too, when she’s old enough, so that, y’know, she doesn’t feel like she’s weird. Or even if she still feels weird, at least she won’t feel alone. So I want to be able to do that.”

“Right,” echoes Nathaniel, tamping down on the instinctual urge to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder – they’ve come far, but casual touch is very much on a case-by-case basis. “I mean, Darryl is raising her: you can’t protect her from all of the weirdness in the world, it’s just not possible.”

That draws a laugh from her. “That’s true.”

“But no one’s going to deny that he’s an amazing father,” Nathaniel continues. “And Whijo’s gotten attached, and, you know, the whole office. That’s going to count for something.”

“I think so. God, I hope so.”

They fall silent, watching as Mrs. Hernandez full-body tackles Jim without hesitating from across the field.

“You forgot someone there,” says Rebecca, when Paula calls a time-out.

“Hm?”

She casts him a mischievous look. “You, silly.”

“I count as part of the office.”

“Uh huh.” Rebecca actually rolls her eyes at him. “It’s a little more than that. Darryl keeps calling you BB’s big brother, did you know that?”

“He does?”

He’s big enough to admit that he’s not too embarrassed by how pleased with himself he is.

“Yep.” She starts laughing suddenly. “Oh my god, wait, would that make me your stepmother?”

Okay, now he’s lost.

“I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

“I’m serious. Well, sort of, but I’m her egg donor, and while you and I both know that doesn’t make a mother, plenty of people would still consider me her bio mom. And Darryl thinks of you as the son he hasn’t had—and if he wants one, he’s not getting one from me, no siree—but it’s still vaguely Oedipal.”

“You’re reaching. So much.”

“Am I though? If we ever hook up again, that would make one messed-up family tree.”

“Only if you explain it like that, given that, you know, Darryl and I are not actually linked in this little diagram you’re drawing.”

“Look, if Darryl could file paperwork to adopt you, he totally would and you know it. Hey, does that make things weird for you and Whijo?”

“ _Rebecca_ ,” he protests, but his heart isn’t in it, because she’s still laughing and he likes the sound too much to actually want to shut down whatever thought process is causing it.

“Seriously, though, lookit you, making the office child-friendly. I didn’t know you liked kids.”

“I mean, not most of them,” corrects Nathaniel. “But they don’t need to know that. And I’m not about to punish Darryl for wanting to spend more time taking care of his daughter.”

“Nah,” agrees Rebecca. “Of course not.”

They settle into a companionable silence. BB decides that sitting is too boring, and crawls unsteadily out of Rebecca’s lap, trundling determinedly down the length of the picnic blanket while still under their watchful eyes.

“Hey,” says Nathaniel. “How sad is it that this screwed-up family tree is still a healthier dynamic than the ones we grew up with?”

“Pretty sad,” agrees Rebecca after a moment, chewing on her lip. Then she smiles at him. “But on the bright side, we aren’t parents and we’re already learning from their mistakes. That has to count for something.”


End file.
